Voronoi mesh effects,. ?

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 2:27 am

Kattle this ones for you brother!

http://www.pushpullbar.com/forums/compu ... ldlab.html

this is where I first saw this the plug in for Wings 3d,. so i google the term,. looks like that voodoo that you do,.

http://www.qhull.org/html/qvoronoi.htm

Could we get a script to affectuate this type of effect on a mesh(or bitmap!),. in fact I have started messing about with wings and there are some very fine concepts and methods you can find while working with the tools in there,. and many make me wonder if someone with actual math skills could simplify and generalize some of the tecniques to make usefull scripts in ZGE ?!?

smoothing and tightening would be good ones too,. we could import a simple tinny mesh (or generate one!) and with these you get madiningly beautiful meshes with a couple applications,. inset and extrude are super usefull as well,. not sure how you could apply these,. we would need some way to select faces or areas,. should look at the fb wrkzg stuff again too,. . thing thay could use one mesh to select over another,.

sorry on a mind trip :s

Post by **Kjell** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 11:55 am

Hmm,

Shouldn't be too complicated to make such a shape out of a mesh containing the right amount of polygons, instead of actually extruding. Which is something ( extrude / inset / smooth / push / etc. ) that's beyond what ZGE should be doing ( in my eyes ) anyway. First of all since it's just eye-candy, but primarily because the file-size difference between raw vertex data and a procedural mesh with a whole stack of modifiers will grow smaller and smaller. Not to mention the loading times ( procedural is always slower ).

K

Post by **VilleK** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 1:40 pm

I've wanted to add a voronoi function to the scripting because it is useful for making cellular textures. So maybe such a function can also be used in MeshExpressions to modify a mesh in interesting ways just like noise.

Currently in zge we have to following techniques to generating meshes:
- start with a primitive
- or start with a 3ds-imported mesh
- or start with implicitmesh to define a function that generates the mesh
- use a meshexpression to modify the vertices
- use meshcombine in combination with repeat to generate fractal meshes

All these options are pretty hard to use. It would be great if we had a component which allowed you to generate many different shapes by just setting properties. Of course it would probably only be useful for abstract shapes but sometimes that is all you want. Just something worth thinking about I think.

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 3:22 pm

Yes we do have quite a lot of options already availible for mesh manipulations,. and yes most are rather complicated for people with out a Phd. in 3D math,. :S
Cellular textures would be great! (I can do some very cool things in Werkkzeug3 using those) I had just never seen that tecnique applied to meshs before and I do quite like the results that are possble,. crystal walls and fine astroides and planetoides,. . etc.

There are more reasons to use procedurals than file size,. or 'eye candy',. although those are both good ones

say, using noise3() to define the terrain you can then use the same function to get an object z position as it moves over it, . or to build a bump map from a sub texture and reuse the same for the more processing and the finnal texture,. and something like a mesh smooth function will save much file size,. I for one am looking for smaller size and let the 'load' time to grow a bit,. currently most of my ZGE projects load/gen almost instantly,. TF2 say on the other hand,. . . . . . .
My bandwith is currently at its monthy limit (21gb) I am activly not d/ling stuff since the middle of the month,. and when I look in the resource folders of some of these games I find large bitmaps of stuff like gradents, noise, and simple primitives (not to mention basic synth noises) that can so easily be generated,. plus my HD is perpetually full,. I guess I am just anti-bloatware!! but I do get you point kjell, that not everything need be generated,. I am having fun with wings again,. so perhaps some actuale modeling in the future. peace.

check the size diference between these two mesh,. the big one is generated from the small one just=> tighten, smooth, smooth. and its 15X bigger,. (and interestingly more stylized!!) now if it where a game object, the small one could be used for the colission mask,. . just saying.

Post by **Kjell** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 4:16 pm

Well,

If you want to do procedural 3D Text the right way, you should be taking the vector route to start with ( NURBS would be ideal ). But even with the current ZGE abilities, you don't need a 10.000 triangle mesh to get a effect similar to what you have now ( Normal / Displacement maps ). Hell, they should ban MeshSmooth / Subdivision operators from 3D packages altogether

And actually, the fastest way to do collision with a plane you've used noise on is to cache the values in a array. Unless the surface is animated ..

Anyway, math sure can make make pretty pictures, and it's certainly the way to go for a significant range of meshes / textures / instruments as you mentioned, but there's no point in procedurally generating anything close to

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 5:37 pm

ha,. yeah we are at cross purposes it seems,. I have a big ugly hate on for realism in games,. and military realism doubly so!

damages the collective subconcience,. IMHO
My fav. game on the PS3 is Pixe Junk Eden, and Everyday Shooter, or Forever Power-up are good too,. I have Assasins Creed and I do enjoy the vast streaming landscapes,. but the main game is dull,. I just run around collecting the flags, more fun

Killzone2 is a dilema for me as it is obviously the antithisis of my thinking,. but so purdy to look at,. lol. something like Little Big Planet is interesting to me as it has 'elements' of realism,. the rendering, materials, physics (sorta) etc. but the game/setting is so abstracted and removed from reality,.. this use of realism I like!

I have to disagree about subdivisions as that is a very good modeling technique,. not just use to smooth meshes but also to create shapes and designs,. Do you have any normal/displacement map shaders to share? I noce bumpmap one would be sweat,. .

stuff like this is what I'm after,.

http://www.flight404.com/blog/images/haeckel_02.jpg
http://processing.org/exhibition/images/hodgin-6.jpg
http://processing.org/exhibition/images/hodgin-1.jpg

in the end we each pursue our own visions,. so, whatever floats your boat!

Post by **Kjell** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 6:51 pm

Hey jph,

Interesting .. what about the graphics in games like Ikaruga or Shadow of the Colossus? Those have pretty realistic style ( the first even military ).

Mesh-smoothing is evil, trust me

They only serve their purpose in packages like Mudbox and ZBrush when you're working towards a Normal Map, and revert back to your ( lower-poly ) model afterwards.

Even when you're going for that early / mid 90s 3D look

K

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 8:14 pm

nice colors,. very funny!

these are more my style;

http://3d-abstract.deviantart.com/art/I ... k-28498573
http://grayve.deviantart.com/art/Subject-27586706
http://dr4oz.deviantart.com/art/LiquidAir-40755516

Ikaruga and Shadow of the Colossus are both fantasy based games,. in one you fly a space? craft fighting glowing dots,. in the other you are a solipsistian chearacter climbing on giant stone beings,. so they both don't try at realism in that gritty military sence,. but hay its just my opinion on what I think is a sad direction of culture,. the glorification of militerism and warfare,. but what do I, know I could be wrong,. . I ain't trying to convince anyone anyway, its just a personal bent.

Post by **Kjell** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 8:37 pm

Ah,

Okay, I see what you mean .. Metal Gear Solid does draw more from "realistic" warfare then Ikaruga indeed. Although Mecha's the size of Colossi and flying cyborgs are still a few years off at the least

I still like Advance Wars though, can't help it.

Love the third piece ( Liquid Air ) .. makes me want to play some Internal Section ~

K

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 8:48 pm

Wow, iS looks cool,. never seen it before,. I will look for an ISO,..

Hay we should do a tube shooter, open-source it,. and use it to promote ZGE and learn some tricks,. iS looks a bit like Gyruss meets REZ,. could try Brain Pipe if you want that type of fix!

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Digital_Ee ... _page.html

Post by **VilleK** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 9:11 pm

Internal Section was one of the coolest looking ps1 game in my opinion.

Another ps1 tube-shooter I liked was N2O:

http://se.youtube.com/watch?v=7bgkT7Hlp8w

kattle87 · Post by **kattle87** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 12:00 am

this is 2-D Voronoy diagram - it's just what other people would call "Cell textures". I've spent a little time on those so that they tile when scaled. The 2 parameters you would like to set are:
NCenters: the number of different cells you are going to create
the way colours are given to the cell. Actually I am sure you will understand how to play with it.

I also have a 3-D version almost ready... The big drawback is: it is based on implicit meshes, so it's quite slow and not exceptionally good looking right now. Not sure about how I will came up with it.

Post by **VilleK** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:41 pm

Hehe that is another thing that I did not think was possible with zge, but you have proved me wrong Kattle

. Very cool that it is tileable too. Perhaps we should still investigate a built-in function for this to get some good performance though. Looking forward to what you can make of that 3d-version.

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:43 pm

very sweet! This will be very usefull for sure,. I made a litlle testing structure. with texture wrap on it makes nice gift wrap or wallpaper,. looks like there are some compelling patterns to be found.

I was looking for a way to get some shading from the points out/in,. etc,. couldn't find way to add that yet,. more hacking to come.

Thanks for working it out knew you would take the challange!

noticed a locking bug ville if you set the point number over the arraw size,. had to end the app,. also when you load it the bit map draws only half?

Post by **Kjell** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 5:05 pm

Hi guys,

The cleanest / fastest solution for this in 3D would probably be to just have a VertexIndex property on MeshExpression ( or a MeshTriangle Component that you can use to add a triangle to a Mesh ) so you can properly loop through the individual triangles / vertices rather then having to take the Implicit route.

K

ZGameEditor forum

Voronoi mesh effects,. ?

Voronoi mesh effects,. ?

no more bloated games,.

cool!